Renée Fleming, Béla Fleck, Appalachia, and an all-star bluegrass band. Though the knee-jerk reaction to this list might be to play “one of these things is not like the other,” there is much more to this premise than meets the eye – and ear.
Fleming is one of the most renowned opera singers of the modern day, but the internationally acclaimed soprano has a long history of musical curiosity and often enthusiastically indulges thereof. From this trait alone, she and Béla Fleck found a resonance within one another, embracing and making music beyond the bounds of their respective claims to fame. This resonance sparked an idea that endured for more than 20 years, culminating in The Fiddle and the Drum, an album of Appalachian songs sung by Fleming and produced by Fleck – one that, more than anything, reveals a journey of familiarity and discovery for both artists.
The pair joined BGS on a phone call to delve into the musical, historical, and personal connective dimensions of this record. The memories shared are rich and many. Some extend as far back as Fleming’s preteen years. Others revive Fleck’s contemplations of how each song might come to life through Fleming’s vocal prowess. Every one of their recollections is imbued with immense mutual respect and awe for each other as well as the album’s many collaborators; it’s clear they both appreciate the gifts each and every person brought to this record.
Our conversation isn’t without painful realities, as the album’s focus on love and loss and war prompts reflections on fights and fatalities happening today. But, ultimately, it’s a conversation colored by a range of emotions and experiences, not unlike the very music of The Fiddle and the Drum itself.
Renée, you’ve spoken extensively about your upbringing and how you formed your relationship with a lot of folk music and folk artists. In that vein, how would you describe the initial perspective you formed about the music of folk, bluegrass, and Appalachia during the younger formative years of your life?
Renée Fleming: I think it was in middle school that they offered a guitar class – which I think is a fantastic way to get kids interested in music, because it’s an instrument you can carry around and you can read tablature pretty easily and pretty quickly. So that got me interested in [music], but also some of the music that I really genuinely liked [and got me interested] came a little later, including my discovery of Joni Mitchell in junior high school and high school. Then I was exposed to it through my family as well, because my grandfather was a fiddler and a drummer, so we had very eclectic tastes in music. I just was constantly exploring. [I] wrote a lot of songs and wrote a lot of music, starting probably when I was 12 years old, and it just branched out from there.
Where did Béla Fleck initially come into the picture for you?
RF: I was already a fan of Béla because of Béla Fleck & the Flecktones. In college, I really started singing jazz with a big band and also with the trio every weekend, so I was a big fan of his [at that time].
Obviously everything worked out the way it was meant to, but you still carry those glimpses into other worlds – folk, jazz, and so on – and it helped somewhat shape where we are now. I think it’s really brought a lot of extra color, showing people that [music] doesn’t have to be so rigid and doesn’t have to be about genres and specific labels and I think that’s something that really shines through with The Fiddle and the Drum.
Béla Fleck: I think we all have a tendency to pigeonhole people and put them into a black-and-white kind of a concept. You know, “They do this, they don’t do that,” but people are nuanced and love all kinds of things, especially when growing up and you’re open, you’re trying things and figuring out where you’re going to land.
I was also a huge fan of Joni Mitchell, and I was a vocal major in school, even though I couldn’t sing worth a darn and was secretly working on the banjo in the closet. But being exposed to classical music in high school – and my stepfather is a cellist, so I was listening to string quartets and stuff when I was a kid. People might be surprised by that, or maybe not, considering the kind of music I like to do, which is very varied. But I think it makes all the sense in the world that all of these other interests make Renée an even better opera singer, if that’s the right thing to call her. But the bigger your world is, the more you can bring to the specific things that you do.
RF: I never heard that you were a voice major before. I love that.
BF: Don’t think I’m gonna sing, because I want to protect you from awful pain, agony, despair.
RF: I don’t believe it.
BF: Nobody ever gave me a voice lesson, but they started me on French horn. I got into my school playing guitar and then it became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to play the French horn. They said, “Listen, you could just go stand in the chorus and still be in the school.”
So they put me back in there, but they needed tenors. I wasn’t a tenor so I just kind of screamed, looked at the music, and tried to figure out what they were singing and sing along. Then, when I got to my final year, they said, “Oh, we found out we’re doing Rhapsody in Blue for the semi-annual concert, and we found a banjo part so you can get out of chorus. If you want to get out of chorus, you can play this banjo part on the final concert.” I was like, “I think I’ll stay in chorus.” I liked it at that point.
Then on the last day of school, the chorus teacher – a woman named Mrs. S, who was an amazing vocal teacher – she had never spent any time with me, but she got me in front of the piano and said, “Stand up straight, sing from your diaphragm!” And she gave me a few quick things she made me do and I was singing like a bird. I was like, “Holy cow, I wish you had given me a lesson when I started at the school. I would actually be able to sing!” She knew exactly what I needed to do. It was remarkable.
Speaking of singing technique, Renée, when you were preparing to record the songs for the album, where on the spectrum of vocal expression did you anticipate needing to steer your voice?
RF: I think it was Béla who kind of clocked that a lot of the songs we were choosing kind of fell in line with [themes of] love and loss – and war, as well.
One of the things that I do, especially when I’m singing outside the classical genre, is I try to avoid an obviously classical sound. That, typically for me, means the upper register. But we worked it in some songs and you just have to be mindful of vibrato. It’s really thinking about style and, for me, that’s the same as when I’m singing on a program of French art song versus an Italian aria. So I may sound the same, but the style is completely different.
What struck me as I listened to the album was just how subtle and yet impactful the differences in how you sing can be. It’s just shaping and forming your voice around the mood that needs to come through. And I visualized that, if your voice was some kind of an entity or something that could be shaped, that you just have this beautiful ability to mold it and manipulate it into exactly the shape and form and size it needs to be to express whatever the music calls for.
RF: I like to record. I like the idea of focusing only on what we hear and not adding so many other elements like you do in a live performance, where it’s also your acting and your movement and how you look and your facial expression. This is a very much more focused activity and we would do many versions of the same song. I left it to Béla to choose which versions he liked. I had almost no complaints about the choices he made.
BF: I loved to hear your voice on all the takes. And then sometimes there would just be a magic moment of, “Oh my god, the song is really happening here. We’ve got to make sure this is part of the final takes.”
I have a frustration when you have something killer that happens in one portion of the take and then the rest of the take isn’t as good. I like to find those magic moments and have them all end up on the record. But I also think for Renée, there’s an unconscious element to being a musician. [To Renée:] You’re inspired by a moment, and sometimes it’s hard to put into words all the things that you’re [doing]. You put the material in front of yourself, you decide [to] embody it, and the music is correct and things are happening in the right way – you just know what to do. And it’s hard to say how you know.
Renée and I worked really, really hard on our craft, but I think the craft is there to serve something that’s a little harder to quantify, which is just what the unconscious – what our bodies and our souls – wants to doubt when it’s time to make the music.
RF: And it has to do with the expression. I’m also thinking of specific pitches and words that relate to the song, but [to Béla:] I was really thrilled to hear how much you could vary what you were playing. Sometimes your harmonies would just come from another world and I’d say, “Wow, that’s so cool. Béla can kind of put in a jazz harmony once in a while.”
BF: You also pushed for that. I remember the first arrangements you said, “I think this could be more interesting.” And then in the moment, I had to come up with a better arrangement, a more interesting arrangement, for the first song on the record [“He’s Gone Away/Storms Are on the Ocean”]. I’m really proud of it. I think if you hadn’t pushed and I hadn’t reacted, we wouldn’t have ended up with that arrangement, which was quite unusual for that song, and then that kind of led the way to being a little bit more open.
It’s funny, when I’m playing with the Flecktones, or Chick Corea, or somebody like those folks, I feel very open harmonically. When I’m playing music that’s more traditional, I’m very careful not to get too harmonic. So, when I discovered this was a safe place to explore a little bit and look for just the right kind of harmonic additions to the basic chords, it was very freeing and inspiring. And of course, getting to work with a great vocalist like Renée… I’ve been a big fan of female vocalists since Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez and Linda Ronstadt and all of these people. I saw that there was a lot of art to working with a great vocalist like that. I was eager to have that opportunity and thankful to get a chance to try and figure out how to make it work from my end.
RF: It’s funny you say that, because I’m a huge fan now of Hazel Dickens, and you said that you had worked with her. Because there’s something so plaintive about the way she sings, it’s like Roscoe Holcomb, too. There’s something– I can’t describe it. It’s authentic and it’s immediate simplicity. I just absolutely love it.
BF: We used to talk about the “ancient tones” in the bluegrass world, and Bill Monroe had this quality. It might not always be perfectly in tune but it didn’t matter. It was just so pure and so powerful. And Hazel has that. It’s like it’s coming from another planet, almost. It’s so deep and powerful the ordinary rules don’t apply. It’s something else.
RF: I agree.
Connecting this topic of the intangible with the themes of the record, how are you both feeling about the album’s thematic focus, given the various experiences of war and loss that are happening in the U.S. and abroad?
BF: What happened was, we had a certain amount of songs we were committed to and we were excited about, and we were looking at quite a large list of additional songs that might finish out the record. That’s when I started looking at the original six songs we had recorded and thought, “You know, there really is a thematic arc.” Some of these songs were not working for me, and I couldn’t explain why until I put my finger on the fact that the six songs that we’d already recorded were telling me a story. When I explained what I was seeing to Renée, she said, “Oh, I see that. That makes all the sense in the world.”
It kind of starts with a romantic relationship that leads to commitment and then the man, in this case, goes off to war and doesn’t make it back. The woman is left on her own, maybe with a child, and then in the end, there’s a rumination about life and the way it goes like this often in the world. So that’s the story arc. Basically, to me, that is about when you make a man your boss, you give yourself up. You give up your beauty. You give up your individuality and all the promise that you could be if you weren’t in that kind of a relationship, you know what I mean? And in a way, the woman in this story is taken advantage of by bigger forces, a war.
Well, this stuff is happening every day, all over the world. And we’re in a big one right now, and there’s a lot of questions as to whether we should be there. Those questions usually come out a few years after the war is over, and everybody will say, “Oh, this was a terrible idea, and here’s why.” You don’t have to be a genius to know that we’re going to be saying the same thing about a lot of these conflicts before long. So to me, it just makes the record have that much more meaning. It’s happening right now, just like it always does – this is what people do. This is what mankind does. And it’s very disappointing that it keeps going back to this place.
RF: [My and Béla’s] generation has been fortunate that, in a way, we’re too young to have really understood what was happening in Vietnam. A lot of this repertoire really relates specifically to Vietnam. But there’s also the Civil War. And every once in a while, things really fall apart. We’re in a period now where the same thing is happening. And it’s really not useful. It’s not going to move the needle for Iranian citizens – it might even make it worse for them. So I just think it’s tragic when leaders feel like the only alternative is war.
BF: Renée also mentioned she wasn’t sure that “Scarlet Tide” would fit with the other songs, but we went ahead and did it because we both loved it. And then when we looked at what we had – again, those first six songs – it made all the sense in the world. The songs were leading us in a direction, one that, unfortunately, mirrored what mankind does.
RF: And my heart goes out also to people in the Ukraine. There are always conflicts happening around the world. There have been so many reasons for these things, it’s shocking that sometimes it’s just [plain] political. I find that really sad.
It certainly has just felt like a very heavy time, for quite a long time. So even though the themes on this album are rather heavy and emphasize a lot of the sadness that’s going on, I think it’s also very cathartic.
BF: It’s funny how in blues and bluegrass, sometimes you’ll sing the most terrible lyrics – little girl and the awful, dreadful snake or a guy killing a woman – and make this very happy, jolly song about it. It’s bizarre! And in blues, a lot of time you’re singing the saddest things, but it’s uplifting somehow to bring them out in the open and treat them maybe in a different way that allows you to experience them differently and work them through in different ways. Some bluegrass songs are really, really sad but they’re so jaunty you don’t quite realize it.
RF: Well, it’s also that we are practicing grief. That’s one of the things that scientists have come up with, that sad songs really help us process and learn how to process actual grief, because we’ll all experience it.
BF: I think also having kids – we’re both parents – but you realize that people process grief in really different ways. Some people don’t show it for a long time, but then it comes out. It’s handled in a lot of different ways.
When you were putting the music together, what kind of unexpected creative sparks came up amongst the two of you and also among the large group of immensely creative artists that are contributing to the album?
BF: I think with music, you can be over prepared because there’s a lot of things that happen very spontaneously when you have musicians of this caliber – people like Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan. Just like Renée colors every take differently, they’re going to do the same. They’re going to be very responsive. Things are going to happen on the floor. Someone’s going to want to stay on the floor in the studio while we’re doing takes, someone’s going to say, “Yeah, I don’t know, that part’s not working for me.” And we’re going to solve it in a matter of seconds and something’s going to work.
It’s a very emotional place to get into when you’re recording, especially songs like this. As we’re all listening to Renée, we’re all inspired by how she’s singing them. They’re different than we’re used to hearing. So we’re playing differently than we’re used to. But we also come up with an arrangement, develop it, and do it a few times so we really think we have something and try not to rush through it. But there’s a tendency for things to really work out very quickly.
So with the producer role that I was in – and Renee didn’t have that experience with these folks, although she has with a lot of other musicians that are improvising musicians – where the parts are not written down and they’re very spontaneous, she was able to ride those waves very well. And whenever she spoke up, she gave me a lot of latitude, a lot of rope. But whenever she spoke up with any comment, it was always dead on the money. It was going to make it better. We listened and we tried to incorporate everything we could to make it her music.
RF: I think also that collaboration, for me– the example I would use is working with a conductor is, at best, very intuitive. You’re reading each other’s signals that you’re giving musically, in terms of dynamics, and it’s never the same way twice. I think that was true in this process as well. And having Béla, who had really created the structure for each of these arrangements, helped to anchor everything.
But to have those other musicians playing – they’re the crème de la crème of Nashville I think, and the singers as well. I mean, the way Dolly Parton was able to add her voice to the track I had already created [“In the Pines”] and just blend in amazingly, but then to also add so much to it. And the same was true for Jerry Douglas. Aoife O’Donovan, I already knew and had worked with her already on a project at the Kennedy Center. I didn’t know Sierra Hull and Sarah Jarosz, who are also just extraordinary musicians and terrific artists. For me, it was really a delight to be working with so many truly great musicians.
I’ve been fortunate to see Béla perform live in other genres with other musicians. [To Béla:] You never do anything easy, because I just wondered at your ability to manage these polyrhythms and changing meters, and then also to keep track of where you are. I mean, it just boggles my mind.
BF: Thanks. I feel like the banjo is like a percussion instrument. Like a tuned percussion instrument, similar to maybe a marimba. The rhythm of things is very fundamental to what makes me tick and what makes the banjo tick, because we don’t have sustain. So everything’s all about where you place the note.
So when they say, if you [lose or] don’t have a sense, your other senses become stronger – I think, as a banjo player, we have certain limitations that are almost like senses we don’t have. We can’t take a note and hold it for a long time. It’s just not possible. So we get better and better at timing and rhythm. If we’re on top of it, and we understand that, then we become rhythmicists.
It’s more challenging for me to do music with a lot of space, because I can’t do it. Banjo won’t do it. So notes will hang in the air for a little while. I can’t sustain like a piano with the whole pedal or things like that, but I find ways to work around it. In this case, I got to play the band. I couldn’t sustain, but I sure know who could. Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan, they know how to hold a note and have it mean something. It’s not just a length, it’s a feeling and a depth. So, I know I can step out of the way.
I mean, for a record that you’re kind enough to want my name on the record as an equal, I felt like I was really playing more of a producer role most of the time, and I really enjoyed that opportunity.
As the producer for the album, did you have a vision for the overall sonic profile of the music? Was there a particular way you envisioned blending the typical folk and bluegrass instrumentation with Rénee’s voice before you hit the record button?
BF: I did have the experience of hearing her sing live, doing opera in China. But I also listened to her recordings before taking the project on, because part of me was wondering, “Well, can she do this? Is this going to work?” I listened to some of her recordings and I heard some stuff that she did with Bill Frisell on one of her records, where she used a lower range. It was almost like a different person. I was amazed at how much I loved it. I love hearing her do her opera thing, because it’s the best it can be. It’s just so good. It’s like how I was not a basketball fan, but when Michael Jordan played, I wanted to watch.
I feel like Renée is like that with opera. Even if you don’t know about opera, or the form is strange to you and you’re not sure what you think about it, when you get a chance to hear her, do it. You want to see it. You want to do it, you want to hear it. I knew she was a world-class singer, but I didn’t realize that she had this other gear that was possible for her in her low range. I’m not trying to say that the opera stuff isn’t unbelievable. It’s just in a different language. It’s a different world of music. It’s a role. She plays these roles on every song.
I just didn’t know if she could translate her honest, personal humanity to these songs. And when I heard these Bill Frisell tracks, I went, “She can, she can! And it’s not a bluegrass/country singer doing their thing. It’s a whole different authenticity. I guess I didn’t know at that time that she had it in her family, and that it was music that she’d heard the whole time. So she wasn’t sitting there thinking or singing down to it, “Well, I can do this. This is easy. I do hard stuff.” She wasn’t like that. She was like, “I’m committing. I’m really going to do this thing.” So I was very impressed by her professionalism but also in the way she could summon up the emotion that felt true and authentic.
I think the album will just keep reinforcing to the listening population out there that people should embrace differences, embrace new, and embrace change – and maybe even embrace the unknown.
BF: I think it’s important to remember that it’s not just the idea that’s good or bad, it’s how it’s done. The same idea could be a disaster if it’s not done the right way.
We have something called a mashup, when you take two people that do completely different things and you throw them onto the same song and they alternate doing their thing. To me, that can be fun and enjoyable, but it’s not a true collaboration – where the artists actually have to change, grow, and listen to each other. You have to actually learn things. I look for those kinds of collaborations, where you’re doing something different from what you normally would do in order to play with this person.
But again, and you can talk about politics [in the same framing], too. Sometimes it’s not the thing that they’re doing, it’s the way that they’re doing it that is either good or bad. When you put musicians together from different musical worlds, often we can figure something out. We can work something out.
When I play with musicians from different parts of the world, people get really excited and happy. I do, the other musicians do, and we find a common ground. We find some way to play together. The people around that are there hearing it are uplifted by the idea that, “Hey, you guys worked it out.” And again, that’s what we need to do politically, too. We need to find ways to reach each other and connect with each other and listen to each other. It doesn’t need to be as hard as it feels like it is.
My most uplifting times have been playing with musicians from other cultures or from other musical worlds and finding common ground – finding a way to be yourself, together, and accommodate each other in that aural space.
Photo Credit: Madison Thorn
